By HRJ
Dr. Jimena de Gortari Ludlow believes that good architecture should be profoundly musical (because it enjoys harmony, rhythm and silences). In fact, her architectural practice has been based on listening to spaces, because "I believe that sound allows me to remember the spatial experience".
In the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería we are convinced of the same thing: spaces are sound, musical atmospheres. So, what could be a possible sound poetics of Mexico City? Jimena often shares possible clues through her #diariosonoro (where she publishes in her Twitter account the sounds of the city in calm) and in her column Soundscape.
How do you find/claim, Jimena, your right to silence in Mexico City, how do you, in such a frenetic and noisy city, manage to open for yourself (and your family) spaces of quiet and calm?
I wake up very early every morning and go out to listen to the calm city, it is my time to be at peace with it. I have been doing it for several years and many times I quickly record what I hear and share it on the networks with the idea of showing that there is the possibility of listening. I claim it by writing and sharing what is possible when we get that silence and noting that it is not an exclusive right as they seem to make us believe.
With my family, I share a taste for visiting quiet places. Visiting a place in silence is part of the habits acquired in childhood: now I try to pass them on to my daughter with weekend outings to less crowded places.
How have John Cage's ideas about indeterminacy and a sound articulation that is produced by chance, in open space, by itself, without the manipulation of a composer (who at most only determines the duration or space), influenced your architectural work?
My architectural practice has been based on listening to the spaces, finally I consider that sound allows me to remember the spatial experience, that's why I look for my students to incorporate the sound experience as part of their designs and for that we do exercises that we call narrative drift where without the need to identify or categorize the sound source they must try to see if it marks a rhythm in their day, if it is heard differently or how they perceive it. In the morning tours I look for those that are the product of that chance and also to understand how the configuration of the city makes the sounds transform. I bet for the city as a formally determined space, but sonorously indeterminate because the sound finds its way and not always the architectural borders stop it. I find the analysis of the mixture generated between the public and the private fascinating and a reason for permanent research.
How would you define the sound identity of Mexico City, how have you been exploring and recording its musical poetics?
It seems to me that Mexico City has several identities, it is the sum of several places, a very diverse social composition and although we can find similar features, it will never sound the same a market to another, or even the bells and it is because the shape of each space determines it. In some places the sound is extinguished more quickly, in others it crosses borders.
I once wrote about this and said that there were characters that identified it: tamales, fierro viejo or afilador, to mention the best known.
I started out recording with my tascam, just as I did for my doctoral thesis. However, now I do it with my device (I know it's not ideal), but it helps me to record the exact moment without the need for prior editing.
The place I live in has a composition that begins with voices and whistles coming from the next street, the broom of sticks suddenly joins and goes rhythmically ... at times the volume of the whistler increases and thunderous horns appear, usually a space of silence follows (the continuous sound of the rolling of the cars), the trills of the birds appear trying to silence the rumble of the plane that is approaching the city.
How can one combat the invasion of noise that Mexico City (sonorously so unbalanced) exerts on a person, how to defend oneself from the capital's sonorous aggression, are there tips you can give so that a person can approach a certain sonorous peace, do you have secret places in the city that allow you to experience it? Is there a particular space of silence that changes your mood when you inhabit it, is there a particular space of silence that changes your state of mind?
One of the ways is to recognize it as a pollutant; that is, to stop thinking of it as a condition for living in the city. Also by becoming aware of the noise we produce: it is necessary to remember the community life that seems to have been diluted. And thinking about silence and not being afraid of it, recognizing the opportunity it represents for us to be able to be without incorporating one more sound source in the spaces we visit, for example. In addition to continuing to demand that the regulations be enforced and being critical of the omission of the authority.
The defense would be not to get used to it, to be patient and take the complaint to the corresponding authority, to demand better sound spaces and to take care of those that still conserve their sound. Do not let the city continue to be invaded with noise; it is unbelievable that every political, sports or leisure event incorporates noise.
To approach a sonorous calm it is worth remembering some place that gives us peace, and this place surely has a sound. The simple fact of moving mentally to that moment will give us a respite, but if we can count on 30 minutes a day of something close to silence, besides improving our neuronal activity, it will allow us to disconnect from the sound aggressions suffered during the day.
You have written that for you architecture "has the ethical task of preserving the memory of the world of silence as well as protecting the fragments of silence that still remain, especially in a culture that has such an appreciation for immediacy and noise". In this regard: What architectures within the city have you found that offer an isolation from the sound aggression from the outside and generate an intimate sound space, where the person can be in deep contact with their own sounds? What materials and forms can achieve this? Have you been involved in architectural projects that have this intention?
The patios of historic buildings and some churches. Your question makes me think of Oaxaca and the textile museum or San Agustín Etla, also the Cultural Center of San Luis Potosí or the garden of the Vasconcelos Library. One of my favorite places is the Fonoteca Nacional, not only for what it houses but also for what it allows for listening. The Anahuacallí and its extension, the Xochimilco Ecological Park ...
The materials are stone, it is also brick, it is adobe, it is water, it is earth. Concrete in combination with other materials as well. The forms are of several rooms like locks in which you enter another sonority that allows you to move away from the hostility of sound.
Twice I have tried to participate in the Mexican pavilion at the Venice Biennale, without any success because the architecture is visible. I have collaborated in a couple of urban projects giving advice on how to reduce noise through design.
From your essay The right to silence Could you answer them here with Mexico City and its inhabitants in mind: Could it be that deep down we are afraid of silence? Is it necessary to rethink the idea of silence in the spaces that are designed?
After having read some of the answers of the Sound Diary of the pandemic about silence and how people felt, to which I undoubtedly attribute an important load of uncertainty, I consider that yes: we are afraid of silence because we do not learn or do not know how to be with ourselves. We were also taught to be in permanent activity and silence is associated to the non-productive, to pause, to calm. Surrounding ourselves with noise makes us feel in company, it mirrors us or finds us with the people on the other side of the wall, even if we do not look at them.
I think we need to incorporate the idea of the sound of the spaces, incorporate silences as you do. Undoubtedly, in some buildings it occurs in a fortuitous way; however, it must be designed with sound.
What sounds of the city that at first bothered you (or even caused irritation) have you been normalizing in your daily life in such a way that they now go unnoticed... do they really go unnoticed or do you consider that they accumulate tension in an unconscious way? How can you dissolve an annoying sound that has been accumulating inside you perhaps without you realizing it, so that it does not end up generating a certain bitterness?
I am little used to the sounds that bother me, although perhaps they no longer disturb me as they used to and it depends on the time of day. The airplanes during the day, the footsteps of the upstairs neighbor, the lowering of trailers on the avenue near my house, the sound of the machine room behind my office.
I am my own case study and many of these sounds generate a very high tension in my body, I end up very tired and I associate it in part to these noises that accompany my daily life.
I can't answer that question, sometimes I think that when I talk about noise with people and somehow they begin to notice the noise in which we live I make their existence bitter. It does not dissolve completely, you incorporate it into your daily life and adapt other aspects, modify behaviors ... fatal, but you normalize it. I share my bitterness in my diary and in my interaction in networks or I try to remember some other sound to get out of that state of bitterness.
How much music can exist in architecture? What are some examples of musical architecture in Mexico City? How can sound articulation have an influence on the design and construction of structures and living spaces?
I think Zumthor, Pallasmaa and Rasmussen have given guidelines to know where it exists and how to find it. I think that good architecture enjoys harmony, rhythm, silences ... I would think that there is music there. The important thing is to know how to listen to it.
I think we need to think of spaces more as atmospheres. The work being done in the field of neuroarchitecture is interesting.
What music do you listen to, and are there particular composers or works that have made a deep impression on you, a kind of paradigm in your life?
I grew up listening to The Cure, Soda Stereo, Depeche Mode, Roxy Music, New Order ... bands that are still on my playlist.
I've added a lot of female voices: Mitsky, Lucy Dacus, Marem Ladson, Gracie Abrams.
I also grew up surrounded by classical and jazz music; my father is a music lover ... so there are several. At Christmas time we danced and I still do, although more to the rhythm of salsa or cumbia.
Chillida's Comb of the Wind marked a before and after in my way of listening to the city.
The sound of Mexico City that most appeals to you:
rejoice: people's laughter, people's steps when they dance.
repels: airplanes, helicopters and public transportation horns.
amuses: the whistles.
terrifies: seismic warning or the cracking of a building when it shakes.
illusion: That of the dry leaves when they break, that of the subway when it enters the station.
attracts: The chirping of birds or the sound of rain, even if it's a thunderstorm. The faint sound of a museum or a church.
intrigue: the one in the sewers.
seduces: The raindrops when it is just beginning, the wind and its fine passage between two walls. The voices of a market.
disconcerting: bumps on some surface, motorcycles.
tiring: traffic noise.
